Thursday, December 18, 2008

Say It Ain't So Joe.


I felt sick when Joe missed that possible game tying free throw, so I can only imagine how he felt.

The officials were just ridiculous in the third quarter, but of course no one will mention it...... except Drew.
I have never seen a player fall down (Paul Pierce) and an official call an official timeout instead of a travel. Ever. Ever. Ever.
I have never seen someone dribble and then dribble again (Garnett). and then get a foul call against the Hawks.
Something Rajon Rondo said that couldn't be more true... "If they played everyone else the way they play us they'd be a top five team."
I have to mention a few things about Josh Smith and the fans view of him. It's no secret that I'm a Josh Smith fan. Not the delusional type, but I do want him on this team. That being said, sometimes I'm sure I can come off as sort of a Josh Smith apologist. That's not what I'm going for at all, but I think he takes an unfair amount of blame for a lot of the things that are wrong with the team.
Do we want Josh out there jacking up shots outside of 12-15 feet? No, but it's going to happen from time to time. The problem I see is that fans seem to only have a problem when Josh takes a bad shot. No one says anything when Flip is out there shooting at will. Everyone just accepts that this is what Flip does. What's that about? I could go on, but the point I want to make is that Josh is not the only player on the team who takes bad shots. He has plenty of company in any given game.
Every shot Joe takes is not a good shot. I know that may be a hard pill for some folks to swallow, but when he has two guys on him and he has to spin and fade away just to get the shot off, not a good shot.
And, if the Hawks ran some semblance of a fluid offense Josh wouldn't even be in a position to take some of the bad shots he takes. They dribble too much, way too much and the play doesn't even develop until there's only a few seconds left on the shot clock. That alone leads to a lot of the bad shots that numerous players on the team take.
I'm not making excuses for Josh, but it does irritate me that people look at him as one of the biggest problems on the team.
It's like the inconsistent rotations, poor clock management, bad play calling and other countless offenses have nothing to do with what plagues the team.

2 comments:

Drew Ditzel said...

coco, good points all around. Esp. about joe taking bad shots vs. josh.

always good to hear the other side because sometimes my screaming JOSH STOP SHOOTING THAT THREE can get pretty annoying.

CoCo said...

Don't get me wrong Drew, I scream noooooooooooooooooo when Josh winds up for those jumpers just as much as the next person, but I also recognize when Joe is working way too hard to get his shot off. And you know maybe Josh's teammates have confidence in his jumper since they insist on passing him the ball when he's way out on the wing and the shot clock is winding down. If that's not the case, then they deserve at least a little blame for his taking bad shots. As the point guard you have to get the ball to players in spots where they can be successful. If you're giving Josh the ball behind the three point line, you're not doing that.